Debian Women Mentoring Program

Welcome to the mentoring program!

The goal of the Mentoring Program is to support and guide anyone who
wants to contribute to Debian (but who might not be sure where or how to
start) as they take their first steps.

What do we mean by mentoring?

Mentors involved in the program are people who have experience in some
Debian-related skills, and who would like to help other people improve
their skills in those areas. We expect that mentoring will be mainly
conducted in 1:1 relationships which might include a fairly broad set of
activities, such as the following:

the mentor giving the mentee technical assistance to
achieve a planned task that contributes to Debian

the mentor helping the mentee interact within the Debian
project in ways that are consistent with achieving the
planned tasks

the mentor providing help to the mentee in finding
documentation that is relevant to the planned tasks

the mentor introducing the mentee to aspects of the Debian
community and culture, especially those which relate to the
planned task

It is important to understand that mentors are not intended to do the
actual work involved in solving the problem that the mentee is working
on. That would defy the point of the program, which is to have the
mentees learn new skills and increase their interaction with and
contributions to Debian. It should also be noted that a mentor will not
necessarily be able (or willing) to sponsor a mentee's package, even if
the mentor is a Debian Developer and the agreed project involves
packaging.

How the program works

Potential mentors can email mentoring@women.debian.org.
We are deeply appreciative of the people who are willing to volunteer their time
to help others in this way, and we hope you will find it interesting and
rewarding.

Potential mentees can email
mentoring@women.debian.org
to be matched with a potential mentor. Please explain in your email the
kinds of activities you are interested in being involved in, and the kind
of help you are looking for. We will do our best to match you up with a
mentor who is interested in helping out with those things.

Once a mentor and mentee have been paired up, it is essentially up to you
to decide together what you will do. Please note that we expect both
mentor and mentee to be able to devote at least the amount of time
required to get into contact and discuss what you plan to do. Beyond
that, time commitments may differ considerably. We hope mentees will be
able to commit the amount of time required to do the tasks they are
interested in, and we hope mentors will be able to commit enough time to
help out their mentees with their tasks. However, bearing in mind that
people's lives and workloads can change, we recognize that people may
have to vary their level of commitment at times.

If you have any problems with the mentoring program or with your mentor
or mentee, you can contact mentoring@women.debian.org,
and we will do our best to sort things out.